190 THERESA ABRUZZI. 



The count, seemingly paralyzed by some inward emotion, 

 answered not. 



" Heaven forgive me then ! '^ cried the brigand, as he levelled 

 his carbine : " it is my last stake." 



" Hold, hold ! " exclaimed the count, as the ball entered his 

 heart. 



Theresa, reviving from her trance, looked up, as the body of 

 her dead father sunk on her knees ; and at that moment the mask 

 fell from the face of his murderer. It was Marco ! — Astonish- 

 ment, horror, and despair were depicted on his countenance. 

 She sunk insensible at his feet. 



On recovering her senses, she found herself in bed, with her 

 only female attendant weeping at her side. " It was then but a 

 dream ! " she exclaimed ; "yet thy tears, Marina, and, oh ! that 

 murdered form ! " fixing her gaze on the dead body of her father, 

 which, from want of room, had been deposited in the same apart- 

 ment. " Nay, hinder me not," she cried, as she sunk back ex- 

 hausted on the bed : " I must go to him — he is my only parent ! 

 Alas ! have I a parent ?" The sense of her bereavement was too 

 horrible for endurance. Convulsions succeeded each other with 

 frightful rapidity ; and in a few hours she was reduced to the 

 brink of the grave. 



Long did she remain in this wretched abode, hovering between 

 life and death ; and indebted, under Heaven, for her recovery to 

 the unremitting care of the gentle and affectionate Marina. Of 

 the past she seemed for a time to have but a feeble and confused 

 recollection. The sudden alarm, the fatal catastrophe, passed at 

 intervals over her memory like an imperfect image, pale and 

 indistinct; and once she saw, or dreamed she saw, the figure of 

 the murderer, through the scanty curtains of her bed. It was no 

 dream : the shade of her former lover — alas ! he was now only a 

 shade — hovered around her, unseen by her domestics, and min- 

 istered to her safety ; he was, in fact, uncontrolled lord of the 

 district, and his fiat was fate. Horror-struck at his crime, he 

 had instantly fled the spot, leaving even Theresa, whose glance 

 he dared not again meet, to the care of her attendants ; but lost 

 as she was to him now and for ever, her fate was still his ; and 

 his first aftercourse was to track her steps to the inn whither they 

 had conveyed her, and the occupants of which were the mere 

 creatures of his will. Strange that the crime by which he had 

 hoped to secure the possession of her should be the means of 

 wresting her from his arms. Retributive justice, though often 



